Game of Thrones: Conquest is the latest soft launch title whose APK I have gotten my hands on for testing purposes. I do this in order to give everyone an idea of what to expect when the game is officially released. While the Play Store listing for Game of Thrones: Conquest is described as a combat strategy game that is most obviously based on the Game of Thrones license, all I could hope for is that it doesn't turn out to be yet another Clash of Clans clone. Apparently I was being too optimistic.

T-Mobile's oft-leaked budget smartphone is now official. The Revvl is launching tomorrow (August 10th) for a mere $125 if paid all at once. Alternatively, you can get the phone with the carrier's Jump-on-demand service for $5 per month. You should not expect amazing specs for that price, but the Revvl looks competent at least.

Chrome OS started off as a very basic computer operating system, but over time it gained touchscreen capabilities and even the option to run Android apps. This naturally calls for more input and navigation capabilities, and some additions to the Chromium open source code indicates Google is hard at work on that. In the not too distant future, we should see features like trackpad zooming on Chromebooks, but maybe not all Chromebooks.

Wednesday has come again, meaning that the week is already half over. That also means it's time for another app sales post, which includes both Apps of the Week. For those of you who do not remember, these ten-cent sales almost always exclude the U.S. (even if the dev puts the app on a different sale here in the States). Keep that in mind as you're looking at both of them.

It's being reported by the Wall Street Journal that Amazon is among the companies which contributed to Essentials $300 million coffers. They also reveal that Best Buy and Amazon will be retail partners for the upcoming phone launch. The best bit of news, though, comes in the form of a set of dates. Although we still have no idea when the phone will launch (Essential has now very much overshot its 'end of the month' June prediction), Essential president Niccolo de Masi says, "I will give you an exact date in a week."

It's easy to forget here in the West that Lenovo still makes its own phones (versus relying solely on Motorola). Despite that, the Chinese company just announced its newest device, the K8 Note. It comes with some decent specs, an attractive price, and stock Android 7.1.1.

Fans of old school arcade shoot 'em ups would have been thrilled when TAITO started porting the RAY series to Android. It's been a long time coming, 5 years after iOS got in on the action. Now, after releasing the first 2 games in the trilogy earlier this summer, the final installment RAYCRISIS has arrived in the Play Store.

Play Protect, the fancy reincarnation of Verify Apps that promises to make app scanning and malware detection more visible to users, has been promised since Google I/O but it took a while for it to start showing up. First, we noticed that the Verify Apps security setting was changed to Play Protect, but that is a buried menu that few people would often run into. Now, the more user-facing aspect is starting to show up in the Play Store.

If you head over to the My apps & games section in the Play Store, you might see the new Play Protect banner on top of all your available and recent updates.

Some European AC wall adapters are being recalled by NVIDIA as they risk causing an electrical shock. We've had tips from readers of the GeForce forum, where a post by an employee linked to an official recall page with instructions for identifying and returning the faulty equipment.

It's school season again and every company is either offering deals on existing products or introducing new ones to entice buyers for their back-to-school/college gear. In that vein, Acer has announced a new series of Chromebook 11s, the sexily-named C771.

First off, these are rugged Chromebooks and they've been tested to withstand drops from 48" height (122cm) thanks to corner shields around the keyboard and display, up to 330ml fluid spills on the keyboard, and they're MIL-STD 810G rated. That should help them stay strong in your bag or your kids' backpack, even when under stacks of books, and handle the rough treatment of a classroom environment.